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In Reply to: Re: universal language posted by Ryan Rockers on February 02, 1999 at 15:43:58:

Well, Ryan, I think that your idea of body language as universal is pretty acurate. There are gestures that can be understood the world over, even if the languages exchanged are completely unintelligable. I know from traveling abroad that a smile, a shrug, a wave of your hand can communicate a lot. To get back to the idea of painting as a universal languauge, I think that is true to some extent, but not in every case. If you look at the paintings of the Renaissance or even as far back as the Lascaux and Chauvet cave paintings in France, you, as a viewer, can generally figure out what the artist intended you to comprehend. Many of these paintings have a specific purpose or idea behind them, such as hope for a successful hunt or the worship of a holy figure. However, as you move toward the 20th century, paintings become more and more abstract or non-objective, meaning that they give us few or no visual clues that we can associate with our everyday "reality". While some of these modern paintings may express the same ideas, they do it via a completely different means of expression. For instance, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello all expressed their vision of spirituality through the physical body of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, etc... On the other hand,Wassily Kandinsky, a 20th century Russian Theosophist, expressed this same spiritual vision without a single static figure. He instead chose to communicate his faith through color- which he felt to be the universally understood language. (If you want to know more about this, read Kandinsky's book "On the Spiritual in Art"- it's a short and fascinating compilation of ideas). So, do you think Kandinsky had the right idea? Is color a type of univeral language? I tend to agree to a certain extent. If you were to see a bright, vibrant yellow, you probably wouldn't think "Oh, how depressing- that yellow just brings me down!". No, you'd think more of a sunny day or a positive attitude. Why else do you think colors are so often applied to emotions? The "Blues"- melancholy songs of a hard lived life. The passion of red, the organic, calming effect of greens. I think color could rival the physical as a universal language. After all, even if you don't understand the painting, you can understand the color. (Also, if you are interested in the effects of color in painting, look into Mark Rothko- he did massive color fields of canvas many feet tall- sometimes filling an entire wall)

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: Well, Ryan, I think that your idea of body language as universal is pretty acurate. There are gestures that can be understood the world over, even if the languages exchanged are completely unintelligable. I know from traveling abroad that a smile, a shrug, a wave of your hand can communicate a lot. To get back to the idea of painting as a universal languauge, I think that is true to some extent, but not in every case. If you look at the paintings of the Renaissance or even as far back as the Lascaux and Chauvet cave paintings in France, you, as a viewer, can generally figure out what the artist intended you to comprehend. Many of these paintings have a specific purpose or idea behind them, such as hope for a successful hunt or the worship of a holy figure. However, as you move toward the 20th century, paintings become more and more abstract or non-objective, meaning that they give us few or no visual clues that we can associate with our everyday "reality". While some of these modern paintings may express the same ideas, they do it via a completely different means of expression. For instance, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello all expressed their vision of spirituality through the physical body of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, etc... On the other hand,Wassily Kandinsky, a 20th century Russian Theosophist, expressed this same spiritual vision without a single static figure. He instead chose to communicate his faith through color- which he felt to be the universally understood language. (If you want to know more about this, read Kandinsky's book "On the Spiritual in Art"- it's a short and fascinating compilation of ideas). So, do you think Kandinsky had the right idea? Is color a type of univeral language? I tend to agree to a certain extent. If you were to see a bright, vibrant yellow, you probably wouldn't think "Oh, how depressing- that yellow just brings me down!". No, you'd think more of a sunny day or a positive attitude. Why else do you think colors are so often applied to emotions? The "Blues"- melancholy songs of a hard lived life. The passion of red, the organic, calming effect of greens. I think color could rival the physical as a universal language. After all, even if you don't understand the painting, you can understand the color. (Also, if you are interested in the effects of color in painting, look into Mark Rothko- he did massive color fields of canvas many feet tall- sometimes filling an entire wall)

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